Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume19 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 3===

The ceiling suddenly dropped to half its height.

The flickering fluorescent lights went out, but was that darkness actually a blessing in disguise? No, the unseen pressure still bore down on Mariydi.

The thick metal door was blasted into the cell and chunks of reinforced concrete bigger than Mariydi flew through the air in lieu of an explosive blast.

(!? I don’t know who’s behind this, but the morons actually did it!!)

That had been a lot of missile blasts. She couldn’t see the situation outside, but the sound told her these weren’t equipped with FAE warheads. If they had been, she would have been dead too. Were those too valuable for the enemy to use them here?

She didn’t hear any sirens.

She hoped that was just her own hearing going out temporarily. She didn’t want to find out the base had been so thoroughly destroyed it couldn’t even sound the alarm.

“Damn.”

She couldn’t just wait in here.

The ceiling fell down further, crushing more than half the surface area of the cell’s floor. The simple bed made of pipes and the porcelain toilet cracked as they were deformed beyond recognition. It was obvious what would happen to a human caught in that.

“Hey.”

Then Mariydi heard a groaning voice.

That meant her ears were functioning, a realization that made the icy girl click her tongue.

The voice came from beyond where the cell’s door had been, but the voice was the unusually cheerful one of the man from before. This was Klarheit Rubyhunter, problem child (…child?) of Royal Air Force Inc.

“Ha ha. We’d better thank the big man upstairs. Those infuriating doors are sitting wide open!!”

“Hold it, you drunk. You haven’t left your cell, have you? Breaking out will get you shot.”

“Sticking around’s not exactly an option.”

Mariydi let out a visible breath and tilted her head.

“The place is on fire.”

She had to look up at the ceiling that was half crushed down by so much pressure.

“And what are we supposed to do about that!? My cell’s exit is sealed up with concrete rubble!”

“A normal soldier’d be screwed, yeah. But not you. Curl that tiny body up like a kitten and climb through the gaps. You can’t afford to wait until the concrete is red hot.”

“What happened to that educated woman!?”

“Couldn’t tell you for most of her, but there is an arm in a Sky Blue arbitrator’s sleeve on the floor over here. Still holding that tablet even.”

The important part was Mariydi wouldn’t be shot the instant she evacuated her cell for her own safety. She took a deep breath to calm herself, got down on all fours, and lowered her head. The exit looked like the toothy maw of a dragon, but there were indeed a lot of gaps between the concrete rubble.

(I hope this is safe. I hate leaving things up to chance. Your calculations are meaningless.)

She stuck her head in a triangular gap and slowly crawled through.

She found a surprise inside.

A thick liquid dripped down on her.

“…”

When she stopped and silently looked up, she found herself eye to eye with someone.

Samantha Beeskiss had been crushed to the point that she was basically part of the concrete rubble now.

“Uh.”

Another attack must have hit the base because the world shook violently around them. Mariydi never did hear what Samantha was trying to say. The jagged concrete pieces slammed together, chewing up the still-living woman.

Claustrophobia pushed in at Mariydi’s heart from all directions.

But backing away wouldn’t solve this. If this hole was sealed, she would be stuck in her cell while the flames and smoke cooked her to death. Her corpse might not rot for three weeks if she was turned into human bacon, but at 12, she wasn’t yet old enough to worry about the condition of her skin.

She clenched her teeth to bear with the rusty smell surrounding her.

She kept crawling to reach the other end of the creaking hole.

Then she heard a dull cracking sound and something else collapsed.

[[Image:HO_v19_BW1.png|thumb]]

The electrical system must have shorted out because several explosive sounds and flashes of light followed.

“Bwah!!”

Once she finally reached the other side and arrived in the hallway, she found a lanky man with a stubbly chin and messy blond hair looking down at her. That would be Klarheit Rubyhunter. He was skinny but did not look remotely healthy, which may have been thanks to his self-admitted alcoholism.

“Ha ha! Stained with the blood of your enemy!? I thought the legendary ace was supposed to look more presentable than that.”

“I’m just glad that well-dressed woman’s gut didn’t burst. I’d have been covered in her shit, puke, and guts then.”

That was the extent of their conversation about Samantha.

Soldiers never lost much sleep over the death of a superior officer they weren’t fond of.

The space in the hallway felt luxurious after her cell. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the chilly subzero air.

She grimaced at the smoky smell.

The fire didn’t appear to be all that bad, but she still held a hand to her head and groaned, feeling like she had just been handed a cup full of chlorinated tap water after running a full marathon.

“That was more than just one missile that hit. What are things like out there?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

The hallway was better than her cell, but it was still badly damaged. First of all, the lights were out. Even the lights for the emergency exit and fire alarm were dead. Thick cracks ran through the concrete walls, fluorescent lights had fallen from the ceiling, and sparks flew where wires came into contact. At this point, it was no surprise the fire alarms and sprinklers weren’t working. Some more fundamental system had been destroyed in Royal Air Force Inc.’s Jotunheim Air Base. The whole building could collapse at any moment, but Mariydi felt a great tension and pressure when she considered checking on things outside.

(I was the only one being punished. If Ice Squadron was following their original schedule without their leader, then they would have joined Sky Blue’s Aurora Wing to help defend the mine. So don’t worry. My idiots are up in the sky. They weren’t caught in this bombing, so they’re all fine.)

“Hey, hey.”

The man called out to her like their surroundings didn’t bother him in the slightest. That seemed inappropriate, but maybe it just meant he had nerves of steel.

“So what do you think’s going on here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I get that the real threat is the cruise missiles making a comeback in the age of Objects. You’re not the lying type and I’m glad you had your point proven so eloquently here. …But here’s my question: was this just an emotional act of revenge? Or was there some coldly calculated objective behind the attack?”

For a moment, she was a little surprised by how calculating this man was. Klarheit Rubyhunter was far sharper than she would have expected of a drunk.

She let out a visible breath before answering.

“Whoever fired that missile realized they can’t use their secret weapon as long as the Capitalist Corporations hold the skies. And someone must have seen me land here at Jotunheim Air Base after I shot down the missile.”

“So the bastards’ plan isn’t over yet?”

“They seem to have plenty of missiles, but they might not have many FAE warheads. So they blew away the air base to clear the way for their next attack. Damn, that means Warsaw is still in danger!”

She belatedly wished she had Samantha Beeskiss’s satellite phone. The tablet had still been in her severed arm, but its screen had cracked, rendering it useless. The woman was trouble alive and no help dead. In an age where phones and tablets outnumbered the population of the earth, Mariydi would have to deliver her report on foot. She would have to cut across a runway larger than a soccer field and deliver the bad news to the control tower. All while praying she wouldn’t be shot on sight.

With that in mind, she took a peak outside through the bent door.

The biting cold of the Scandinavian night reached her soft cheeks.

What she found was even worse than she had feared.

She instinctively ducked back inside after hearing a sound just as loud as the cheers at a hard rock concert. Something was severely wrong at this air base. For one thing, the runways were supposed to be illuminated at all times, similar to baseball field lit up for a night game, so why was it all wrapped in darkness?

After ducking back inside, she clicked her tongue.

“Why are a ground unit’s tanks driving right over the fence!?”

“So this wasn’t just a long-range bombing? We’re looking at a full-on war here?”

Mariydi heard a quiet sound.

Noticing a soldier casually peeking inside, she slammed a hunk of concrete larger than her fist into the man’s face. And this particular hunk had a piece of rebar thicker than her pinky sticking out. She gave the blunt weapon enough force to knock him over and splatter the contents of his skull across the floor.

The stubbly man behind her took a glance at the dead man’s guns.

“A 9mm handgun and an assault rifle with its aiming assistance computer spread out across multiple parallel processing components instead of concentrated in the scope? So we’re dealing with the Legitimacy Kingdom?”

“But he’s picked up some ‘loot’.”

Mariydi grabbed a familiar Capitalist Corporations communicator and mobile device. They were both covered in blood. He had probably intended to bring them back with him, check them for valuable data, and score some points with his Legitimacy Kingdom military.

Mariydi kept an eye on things outside while she unlocked the communicator in the usual way. The LCD screen’s backlight was terrifying in the dark, but she had no choice at the moment.

“CT, CT!! This is Mariydi Whitewitch of Sky Blue Inc. I’m currently at the front of the detention barracks. Are you willing to hear me out now? This attack was meant to clear the way so their cruise missile can reach its target!! And it looks like it’s the Legitimacy Kingdom that wants to bring us back to an older age.”

“Ksh, ksh, manually…changing…radar angle…ksshh!!”

The signal noise was really bad.

Mariydi clicked her tongue. She had seen this before. The noise in Samantha’s signal had preceded the first downpour of missiles.

It wasn’t over yet.

“Another attack is on the way! This is a message from the base commander! Anyone pilots remaining on the ground are to board any craft they can reach on the runways. If you can fly, escape to the sky. I repeat, every last person who can fly needs to escape into the sky!! Ksshh!!!!!”

The transmission ended at the exact time a great tremor ran through the base.

Only afterwards did Mariydi realize one of the tanks’ 120mm guns must have hit the control tower.

(Damn.)

She gnashed her teeth, but then the drunk cried out in surprise while aiming the stolen assault rifle out from a gap in the bent door.

“Whoa!? Why the hell are our own people firing on us!?”

“Because you’re making all that noise firing a Legitimacy Kingdom toy, you dumbass.”

She quickly had him lower the gun.

That had drawn some unnecessary attention on them and the Legitimacy Kingdom tanks and armored trucks were driving around the runways like they owned the place. Without some kind of plan, they would be turned to Swiss cheese or even mincemeat the instant they stepped outside.

Trying to fortify their position behind a thick wall was meaningless against a tank’s gun, so Mariydi Whitewitch crouched down and faced the dead soldier.

“Two smoke grenades, a signal flare, and…is this a smoke bomb? I would love to at least blind that tank…”

“Hold on. Do you have any idea how many runways there are out there? We’re talking about five times the size of a soccer field with no cover the entire way across. You can’t cover all that with smoke.”

He was right. The threat wasn’t over once they left the detention barracks unharmed. They had to survive long enough to board one of the aircrafts on the runways and fly out of here.

The control tower operator had said another attack was on its way, so they didn’t have long until hundreds of cruise missiles rained down on their heads.

However…

“How much ammo does that assault rifle have left?”

“Two magazines. That’s not enough for a surprise attack on an enemy base. That dead guy may have had a supply truck or one of those bovine robots with him.”

“Don’t worry about preserving the battery. With all those sensors, even an amateur can shoot like an expert sniper. The problem is how dark it is with the lights out. Aim carefully and fire. Your target is 600m away at 10 o’clock.”

“But that horrible grinding is coming from a Legitimacy Kingdom MBT!”

Mariydi snatched the rifle from sickly skinny Klarheit and swiftly aimed it.

She had been asking him to shoot that tank.

“Gyah!?”

Needless to say, an ordinary bullet could not defeat a tank. The alcoholic gave a pathetic scream when he heard the gunshot. He may have considered her action similar to throwing a pebble at a giant bear.

But she knew what she was doing.

The tank was soon surrounded by something like white cotton candy. She had shot the smoke bomb launcher attached to the side of the tank gun. That was essentially a giant smoke grenade. The smoke produced by those had chemicals and a metal powder mixed in to block sensors and radar in addition to ordinary vision.

The smoke bombs were meant as a lifeline to protect the tank from its natural predator, the attack helicopter, but covering the tank itself with the smoke would impede its own functioning. Using a smoke defense near infantry was a good way to run over your own people by accident. That was a lesson people often learned the hard way in the Northern Restricted Zone.

Mariydi couldn’t cover the entire base with smoke, but she could pinpoint target the tank that was the biggest threat.

“Let’s go.”

She used her other hand to toss the 9mm handgun to Klarheit, grabbed a plastic bottle from the ground, and duct-taped it onto the assault rifle’s muzzle. She doubted that would actually function as a suppressor, but if she didn’t alter the shape of the muzzle flash and sound of the gunshot, she could get shot by the other Capitalist Corporations soldiers.

With that done, she stepped outside.

Into the night.

The ground came in two varieties: ice-cold asphalt and soft Scandinavian soil where little grew.

The air base was quite large. And to efficiently operate the aircraft, it was made flat with all unnecessary obstacles removed, leaving almost nothing to use as cover. It was a very bad place for a firefight.

As Mariydi herself had pointed out, the outdoor lights were dead.

Even the backup power had been dug up. That succinctly told her just how badly damaged the air base had to be.

Before another tank could turn its gun their way in the darkness, Mariydi accurately fired the assault rifle into the smoke bomb launcher on its side. She could feel the squeezing of her heart when the muzzle flash shined as bright as a reporter’s camera.

A Legitimacy Kingdom soldier aimed her way while she was focused on the tank, but the alcoholic man blew that soldier’s brains out with his handgun.

The two of them swapped places and rapidly repeated the process.

If they ever fell even a second behind the enemy, they would lose their lives on this hellish battlefield. Again, there was no cover out here. The darkness was no help when the enemy had cutting edge sensors and all the muzzle flashes would reveal their silhouettes anyway.

And those lights were not like the large illuminated signs decorating a safe country city.

Each and every flash was paired with a bullet launched toward a living human.

Surviving here was like being asked to block a real bullet with a phony magic trick. As soon as the enemy saw through the trick, they would be riddled with bullets.

Unable to aim properly with its own smoke in the way, the tank fired its 120mm gun in the wrong direction. It ended up blowing away one of the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers instead of Mariydi and Klarheit. Mariydi resisted the reflex to get down on the ground and jerked her chin over to indicate something.

“Look…that’s a Zig-27. Hey, what’s your job anyway? You said you like to fly with a liquor bottle in hand, but you aren’t gonna tell me you’re just a gunner who never holds the stick, are you?”

The drunk suddenly veered away from her.

Her eyes widened.

“Hey!”

“There’s a bomber not far from here. If I get that sleepy-head’s engine up and running, we can rescue some of the non-pilots too. The cockpit only holds two, but it can hold over 100 times as many if we clear out the bomb bay. They’ll probably want to duct-tape themselves to the floor or wall and keep an oxygen tube in their mouth, though.”

Mariydi didn’t have time to stop him. By the time he was done talking, he was already off toward the slow and heavy bomber. The Rev-51 all-altitude, all-speed adjustable wing bomber had its long main wings flowing back from its fuselage, giving it the sharp silhouette of an arrowhead.

Mariydi watched him leaving in the darkness and sighed.

“I thought he was just some asshole, but he’s got a surprisingly good heart,” she whispered too quiet for him to hear.

Just then, the drinker was engulfed by an explosion and dust cloud caused by a tank gun.

Mariydi groaned, held her fingers to her temples, and then climbed up to the fighter’s cockpit. Without a ladder, climbing the unique streamlined nose was a lot like some quick bouldering. The secretly tearful girl bit her lip and kept her silence.

(This is always what happens when someone tries to be kind. War can be so cruel!!)

She did not have time to move the flaps and rudder for the preflight test. She skipped all that and simply ignited the engine, pushing the Zig-27 forward. Once it began accelerating, it was even faster than a red luxury car.

“Tch. Another headset-style oxygen tube. These things must work a little too well because I’m seeing them everywhere.”

The engine’s flames were a frightening thing in the darkness.

A tank gun broke through the wall of smoke to aim her way.

She launched all her emergency evasion flares while still on the ground. More and more of the round balls of light were expelled behind the fighter, bouncing along the runway. The bright lights and extra heat sources confused the tank gun, so it fired in the wrong direction.

She had nearly reached takeoff speed.

That was when a Legitimacy Kingdom infantryman launched a personal rocket launcher.

It was a simple anti-tank weapon, so it was not guided. It was likely meant to destroy the runway ahead of her rather than hit the fighter itself. Just like you could stop a train by removing the track.

The asphalt was torn up and more than half of the runway’s usable length was taken from her.

She gulped and checked the airspeed gauge. She had not reached 200km/h yet. That was not enough for a stable takeoff with this large air superiority fighter, but she had no choice but to pull up on the stick.

The wheels lifted from the runway, grazing the jagged asphalt at the last second, and then the Zig-27 broke free of gravity. The accumulated lift quickly raised a hunk of metal heavier than a large truck. It might sound surprising, but fighter craft were very vulnerable when taking off. For the pilots who shared their craft’s fate, that moment felt as unstable and flimsy as a kite tossed about in the wind.

Nevertheless, she had managed to take off without dying.

She now had the advantage. The tanks and armored trucks may have been unstoppable on the ground, but now she could attack their fragile roofs from the sky. Now was her chance to strike back.

“Ksh. This is Lieutenant Colonel John Foxtrot in Capitalist Corporations Royal Air Force Inc.’s Ground Command Vehicle. With the CT destroyed, we have to skip the formalities, but I can see your signal on the screen. I’m glad at least one of you got out.”

“Ice Girl 1 to ground personnel. Raise your anti-friendly-fire cards and hold on just a bit longer. I’ll gift these bastards everything I’ve got hanging from my wings!!”

“That’s air-to-air equipment, so don’t worry about us. You’re from Sky Blue, so you have no obligation to stick with us. Ice Girl 1, do whatever it takes to survive. And I don’t mean in the current shoot-or-be-shot situation. Find a more fundamental way to get back at them. Ksh!! Protect the safe country. Save Warsaw. Ksh, so do whatever you need to do. I grant you authorization for it all. This is the final command Royal Air Force’s Jotunheim Air Base has for you in our joint operation. I’m glad we had this chance to work together.”

“Shut up and stop glorifying your deaths!!!!!! Money is everything in the Capitalist Corporations, so there’s no place for self-sacrifice here. Besides, this disaster is the direct result of me landing here, so I’ll clean up my own mess. Listen, I’m going to save all of you no matter what you say and even if you try to pull rank on me!! So-”

But she didn’t have time to turn around in a big circle and support the air base.

The night sky split open.

And not just in one place. More and more long, skinny contrails were drawn out from the same direction as a shower of cruise missiles poured down on the surface. Mariydi recklessly charged straight into the swarm of missiles, but shooting down just one of them wouldn’t change anything. The entire air base was filled with deadly explosions with the exception of the predetermined evacuation spots known only to the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers.

After that bitter intersection, the dark world was dyed white below her.

Half the control tower had already been torn down, but now the sturdy fortress at the bottom was also obliterated. She hadn’t seen where the command vehicle was located.

These weren’t even FAE. The snooty Legitimacy Kingdom nobles must not have considered the air base worth using their prized weapon on.

But a home to so many soldiers was destroyed all the same.

Jotunheim Air Base was annihilated.

There was no point in providing air support now. And Mariydi herself could not relax either. She released chaff and made a turn to avoid anti-air missiles launched by the enemy troops who now occupied the pile of rubble below.

“Kh.”

She clenched her teeth, but she could not let herself die here.

She did not fear the attacks from the surface, but she no longer had anywhere to land. She was hundreds of kilometers from the closest PMC air base. She didn’t know if her fuel would last that long and she didn’t know what areas were enemy territory or where their anti-air network was located. While she did some swift calculations in her mind, she noticed a dot on her radar.

That wasn’t a missile. It was too big and slow.

Times like this were so irritating when she was tightly strapped in. She turned her head to look back and satisfy her curiosity.

“Hey! You there!?”

She received a transmission in violation of military regulations. It was the same voice she had first heard in her cell.

She clicked her tongue.

“Ice Girl 1 to unidentified craft. How in the world are you alive!?”

“That was a tank gun, remember? An armor-piercing round that fires on a single point. These things happen all the time in the Northern Restriction Zone. If it isn’t a specialized high-explosive round, it’s surprisingly easy to survive even within the lethal range of the blast. And with you gathering all the attention, taking off was a breeze.”

Mariydi heard the roar of an engine very different from a fighter craft.

It came up alongside her.

She now shared the sky with a bomber that weighed more than seven times what her Zig-27 did. Needless to say, this meant Klarheit Rubyhunter had managed to get that 215ton Rev-51 into the air during that frenzied battle. He made it sound like nothing, but his luck may have been greater than Mariydi’s own.

“How many people did you collect?”

“85.”

That may have ben a drop in the bucket for an air base of more than 2000 when including everyone from the pilots to the perimeter guards. Big picture, this had been a devastating defeat.

But Mariydi Whitewitch smiled a little with her hands on the stick.

They had managed to save some lives in this battle.

She could just imagine those monsters howling with rage.

“Ice Girl 1 to unidentified craft. …I won’t let those 85 die no matter what.”

“Call me Oversize. Even if I just made it up.”

“Really? Trying to brag about having a big dick now of all times?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, you dirty girl. I’m talking about the size of the bomber. Anyway, my massive antenna just intercepted a secret transmission. Its encrypted and I can’t tell you what it says, but I can tell you where it was transmitted from. That’s gotta be the Legitimacy Kingdom HQ where they’re sitting back and enjoying the fireworks show they ordered. Ooh, I just found some whisky hidden next to the seat. Ha ha! Guess I’m not the only one who likes stealing a drink above the clouds. Yet I’m the only one who gets in trouble for it. How’s that for unfair, eh!?”

“Hold on, what did you just say?”

“Hweh? I’ve got 13 years’ experience as a dancing drunkard, so I’ll be fine.”

“Not about the booze!! Oversize, are you thinking of fighting while dragging that huge ass around with you!? You need to get to safety! Or are you going to get those 85 people killed!?”

“Don’t give me that, girly. Did you forget our final orders from the CT? They knew that was their final moments on this earth. They said they’d changed the radar angle, so those officers would’ve seen the all those missiles approaching the base. They could run a countdown until their death, accurate to the second. But those respectable dumbasses choked down any final message they might’ve had for their families or lovers and suppressed their shaking long enough to tell us pilots we were free to fight. Don’t tell me their determination didn’t reach the heart in that little chest of yours.”

“…”

“C’mon, don’t go soft on us now, Ice Girl 1. Even a drunk like me knows you’re sharper than the rest of us. So use us. Remember, this ain’t a transport plane or a spy plane – it’s a bomber. And you might think of the 85 people in here like precious baby birds you need to handle with care, but every last one of them is begging to be given some way to fight. They’re willing to rush in front of the bullets as a human shield if it’ll get back at the bastards who did this to our base. You weren’t the only one who heard that final order, you know? And a Capitalist Corporations PMC doesn’t need to see the money come in on their bank account before they act. Don’t deny these adults their pride with your childish reluctance.”

Those were the grounded members of the air force.

The personnel the drunk had collected were the businessmen in nice clean jackets and the experts who processed data at a computer on the ground.

For meals they would eat lamb sauté or fish à la meunière in a nice dining hall (because they could push for living condition improvements in a way the Legitimacy Kingdom and Faith Organization could not), so they never had to eat simple rations out of a packet. They were officially known as soldiers, but most of them ended up retiring without ever holding a gun outside of training.

(But I guess a soldier is still a soldier.)

They still had their fangs.

They weren’t going to back down after seeing their base obliterated by such a merciless surprise attack.

They knew they were essentially throwing away their lives immediately after having them saved, but they felt they had to do something for their colleagues who had not made it on board a plane.

Mariydi rubbed her thumb along the protective cover at the top of her control column.

“What is that bomber loaded with?”

“250kg of smart bombs and a full set of ASMs. Oh, and listen to this. In a happy bit of irony, I’ve got a nice big FAE bomb in here. The scary part is how all this is after unloading half its capacity. Hic, and for anti-air defenses, I’ve also got the machinegun and some shortrange AAMs. Ugh, I could really go for a snack right about now.”

“I see.”

The idiot appeared to be drinking already, but Mariydi smiled.

There was nothing to hold them down as they flew through the clear night sky with the round moon shining on everything.

She too wanted to do whatever she could to strike back.

“Understood, Oversize. I’ll clear the path you need to drop everything you’re carrying.”

This attack was only the beginning.

With the air base gone, the primary cruise missile would be flying straight for Warsaw.

They needed to strike back before that happened.

Protect the safe country. Save Warsaw.

Do whatever you need to do. I grant you authorization for it all.

Her final order from Jotunheim Air Base was still in place.